The Skull Mantra (17 page)

“I am sorry. I have no authority.”

“Of course you do,” Yeshe suggested. “You are a direct representative of Colonel Tan. You will report any impropriety to him.” Yeshe seemed torn by indecision, then bolted toward the soldiers. He was not about to have an incident at the mine delay completion of his assignment. He was, Shan reminded himself, a man with a destination.

The soldiers began raising and lowering the blade of their bulldozer, giving the machine the appearance of a hungry monster, impatient to chew its food. Kincaid moved back and forth, vigorously gesturing at the ponds, at the mountains, and the equipment sheds.

“Mr. Kincaid,” Shan observed, “is an unusually zealous man.” He saw Fowler's confused glance. “For a mining engineer.”

“Tyler Kincaid is a treasure. Could have his pick of jobs in the company. New York. London. California. Australia. He chose Tibet. Is he zealous? We're eight thousand miles from home, trying to open a mine with unproven technology in an unproven location with an unproven workforce. Zealousness struck me as something of a credential.”

“His pick of jobs. Because he is so qualified?”

“That, and his father owns the company.”

Shan watched Tyler Kincaid as he moved to the lead soldier and shook him by the shoulders. His father owned the company, and Kincaid was at what had to be the most remote, inaccessible outpost of the company anywhere on the planet. “He said something. MFCs. What does it mean?”

“Just his way of talking.”

“Talking about what?”

“Bureaucrats, I guess.” She saw that he would not give up, and shrugged. “An MFC is a Mother Fucking Communist,” she explained, and turned back toward the workers with an amused grin.

Yeshe arrived in front of the soldiers and began pointing toward Shan. The bulldozer blade stopped and the soldiers peered toward the dike in obvious uncertainty. Kincaid used the reprieve to dart to the administration building, from where he reappeared at full speed carrying a black box. Fowler raised the glasses for a moment, gave a grunt of amusement, and handed them to Shan.

Kincaid had a portable tape player. He set it in front of the bulldozer and began playing American rock music, so loud Shan could hear it from the dike. The American engineer began to dance.

At first both sides just stared. Then a soldier began to laugh. Another soldier joined the dance, then one of the Tibetans. The others all began laughing.

Fowler sighed. “Thanks,” she said, as if Yeshe's intervention had been Shan's idea. “Crisis averted. Problem still not solved,” she said, and began walking toward the office.

Shan moved to her side. “Have you thought about a priest?” he asked.

“A priest?”

“The Tibetans won't work because they believe something has released a demon.”

Fowler shook her head sadly, surveying the valley. “Somehow I can't believe it. I know these people. They aren't pagans.”

“You misunderstand. It's not that most of them believe a monster is roaming the hills. What they believe is that the balance has been disturbed, and an imbalance produces evil. The demon is just a manifestation of that evil. It could be manifested in a person, in an act, even an earthquake. The balance can be restored with the right rituals, the right priest.”

“You're saying all of this is symbolic? Jao's murder wasn't symbolic.”

“I wonder.”

She turned to gaze down the Throat as she considered
Shan's suggestion. “The Religious Bureau would never permit a ritual. The director is on our board.”

“I was not suggesting a Bureau priest. You would need someone special. Someone with the right powers. Someone from the old gompas. The right priest would make them understand they have nothing to fear.”

“Is there nothing to fear?”

“I believe your workers have nothing to fear.”

“Is there nothing to fear?” the American woman repeated, threading her fingers through her auburn hair.

“I don't know.”

They walked on in silence.

“It's not exactly something that was covered in my environmental impact statements,” Fowler said.

“It was not necessarily the result of your mining work.”

“But I thought that was the whole—”

“No. Something happened here. Not Jao's murder, because so few know about it. Something else. Something was seen. Something that scared the Tibetans, that had to be explained to their way of thinking. A ready explanation would be the excavation of the mountain. Every rock, every pebble has its place. Now the rocks and pebbles have been moved.”

“But the murder is involved, isn't it.” It was not a question. “The demon. Tamdin.” Her voice was almost a whisper now.

“I don't know.” Shan studied her. “I did not realize you were so upset about the murder.”

“It's got me spooked,” she said, looking back at the workers. The machines were backing away from each other. “I can't sleep at night.” She looked back at Shan. “I'm doing strange things. Like talking to total strangers.”

“Is there something else you need to tell me?” As they approached the compound, Shan noticed movement at the end of the farthest building. A line of Tibetans extended out of a side door, mostly workers but also old women and children in traditional dress.

Rebecca Fowler seemed not to notice. “It's just that I keep thinking that they're connected. My problem and yours.”

“You mean Prosecutor Jao's murder and the suspension of your permit?”

Fowler nodded slowly. “There is something else, but now with my permit suspended it will just sound spiteful. Jao was on our supervisory committee. Before he left here on his last visit, Jao had a big argument with Director Hu of the Ministry of Geology. After the meeting, outside, Jao was yelling at Hu. It was about that cave. Jao said Hu had to stop what he was doing at the cave. He said he would send in his own team.”

“So you knew about the cave before their argument?”

“No. I didn't understand their argument. But later Luntok mentioned the trucks he had seen. I didn't connect any of it until I went to the site that day. Even then I was so upset with Tan that it was only afterward I remembered Jao's argument with Hu.”

They were nearly at the truck, where Yeshe and Sergeant Feng waited. She paused and spoke with a new, urgent tone. “How do I find the priest I need?”

“Ask your workers,” Shan suggested. Was it possible, he wondered, that she would defy Hu, even Tan, to keep her mine open?

“I can't. It would make it official. Religious Affairs would be furious. The Ministry of Geology would be furious. Help me find one. I can't do it myself.”

“Then ask the mountaintops.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. It's a Tibetan saying. I think it means pray.”

Rebecca Fowler grabbed his arm and looked at him desperately. “I want to help you,” she said, “but you can't lie to me.”

He responded only with an awkward, crooked smile, then looked longingly toward the distant peaks. He would never lie to her but he would always believe the lies to himself if they were his only hope of escape.

“News flash,” Sergeant Feng muttered to the commando in battle fatigues who stood at the 404th gate. “The Taiwan invasion is going to be on the coast, not in the Himalayas.”

The 404th had the appearance of a war zone. Tents had been erected along the perimeter. New wire had been strung on top of the barbed fence already in place, a vicious-looking strand with razor-sharp strips of metal dangling from it. The electricity had been cut off, except for the wire leading to a new bank of spotlights at the gate, leaving the compound in shadow as the last glimmer of dusk faded across the valley. Bunkers of sandbags were being built for machine guns, as if the Bureau troops expected a frontal assault. A freshly painted sign declared that a fifteen-foot strip inside the fence was now the dead zone. Prisoners entering the zone without authorization could be shot without warning.

The commando raised his AK-47 rifle. There was a raw, animal quality in his countenance that made Shan shiver. Sergeant Feng shoved Shan violently through the gate, knocking him to his knees. The knob studied Feng a moment, then, with a reluctant frown, stepped back.

“Got to show them who's in charge,” Feng mumbled as he caught up with Shan. Shan realized it was meant to be an apology. “Damned strutting cockbirds. Grab the glory and move on.” He stopped, arms akimbo, to survey the knobs' bunkers, then gestured toward Shan's hut. “Thirty minutes,” he snapped, and moved back toward the brilliantly lit dead zone.

The air of the blackened hut was thick with the smell of paraffin. There was a sound as though of mice scampering on a rock floor. Beads were being worked. Someone whispered Shan's name and a candle was lit. Several prisoners
sat up and stared, breaking the count of their beads. Their faces were shadowed with fatigue. But on some there was also something else. Defiance. It scared Shan, and excited him.

Trinle was on his feet as soon as he saw Shan.

“I must speak with him,” Shan said urgently. Choje was on the bunk behind Trinle, as still as death.

“He is near exhaustion.”

Suddenly Choje's hands moved and folded over his mouth and nose. He exhaled sharply three times. It was the ritual of awakening for every devout Buddhist. The first exhalation was to expunge sin, the second to purge confusion, the third to clear away impediments to the true path.

Choje sat up and greeted Shan with a flicker of a smile. He was wearing a robe, an illegal robe, which had been sewn together from prison shirts and somehow dyed. Without speaking he rose and moved to the center of the floor where he dropped into the lotus position, joined by Trinle. Shan sat between them.

“You are weak, Rinpoche. I did not mean to disturb your rest.”

“There is so much to be done. Today each hut did ten thousand rosaries. Many of the men have been prepared. Tomorrow we will try for more.”

Shan clenched his jaw, fighting his emotions. “Prepared?”

Choje only smiled.

A strange scraping noise disturbed the stillness. Shan turned. One of the young monks was reverently spinning a prayer wheel, fashioned from a tin can and a pencil.

“Are you eating?” Shan asked.

“The kitchens were ordered closed,” Trinle explained. “Only water. Buckets are left at the gate at midday.”

Shan pulled the paper bag that contained his uneaten lunch from his coat pocket. “Some dumplings.”

Choje received the bag solemnly and handed it to Trinle to divide. “We are grateful. We will try to get some to those in the stable.”

“They opened the stable,” Shan whispered. It was not a question but an anguished declaration.

“Three of the monks from a gompa to the north. They sat near the gate, demanding an exorcism.”

“I saw the troops outside. They look impatient.”

Choje shrugged. “They are young.”

“They will not grow old waiting for striking prisoners.”

“What can they expect? There is an angry
jungpo.
It would be but the work of a day to restore the balance.”

“Colonel Tan will never allow an exorcism on the mountain. It would be a defeat, an embarrassment.”

“Then your colonel will have to live with them both.” There was no challenge in Choje's voice, only a trace of sympathy.

“Both,” Shan repeated. “You mean Tamdin.”

Choje sighed and looked about the hut. There was another unfamiliar sound. Shan turned and saw the
khampa,
sitting by the door. The man had a frightening gleam in his eyes.

“Gonna get us out, wizard?” he asked Shan. He had removed the handle from his eating mug and was sharpening it on a rock. “Another of your tricks? Make all the knobs disappear?” He laughed, and kept sharpening.

“Trinle has been practicing his arrow mantras,” Choje observed as he watched the
khampa
with sad eyes. An arrow mantra was a charm of ancient legend, by which the practitioner was transported across great distances in an instant. “He is getting very good. One day he will surprise us. Once when I was a boy I saw an old lama perform the rite. One moment there was a blur and he was gone. Like an arrow from a bow. He was back an hour later, with a flower that grew only at a gompa fifty miles away.”

“So Trinle will leave you like an arrow?” Shan asked, unable to disguise his impatience.

“Trinle knows many things. Some things must be preserved.”

Shan sighed deeply to calm himself. Choje was speaking as though the rest of their world would not survive. “I need to know about Tamdin.”

Choje nodded. “Some are saying that Tamdin is not finished.” He looked sadly into Shan's eyes. “He will not show mercy if he strikes again. In the time of the seventh,” Choje said, referring to the seventh Dalai Lama, “an entire Manchurian
army was destroyed as they invaded. A mountain collapsed on them as they marched. The manuscripts say it was Tamdin who pushed the mountain over.”

“Rinpoche. Hear my words. Do you believe in Tamdin?”

Choje looked at Shan with intense curiosity. “The human body is such an imperfect vessel for the spirit. Surely the universe has room for many other vessels.”

“But do you believe in a demon creature that stalks the mountains? I must understand if—if there is to be any chance of stopping all this.”

“You ask the wrong question.” Choje spoke very slowly, in his prayer voice. “I believe in the capacity of the essence that is Tamdin to possess a human being.”

“I do not understand.”

“If some are meant to achieve Buddhahood then perhaps others are meant to achieve Tamdinhood.”

Shan held his head in his hands, fighting an overwhelming fatigue. “If there is to be hope I must understand more.”

“You must learn to fight that.”